Thursday, February 08, 2007

Royal Mail Intrigues

To complete my mining of Amy's emails for blog entries ... she sent me a link to a book, Envelopes: A Puzzling Journey Through the Royal Mail, by Harriet Russell.

The book looks interesting and all, but you can click on the link for more info about the actual story. Just hearing the title reminded me of when I was living in England.

My parents sent me a package for Valentine's Day. I never received it, and didn't even know it had been sent until they asked me about it a few weeks later and I said I'd never gotten it. Fast forward to my birthday (April 2), and the package arrives. Maybe not exactly on the day, but right around then. No note, no explanation .... just on the doorstep.

Ahhh, Royal Mail. No attempt to place blame on those other than yourselves; whenever I've gotten anything late or damaged in the U.S., the package also contains a detailed disclaimer explaining that the Postal Service handles an enormous amount of mail on a daily basis, it's to be expected that things sometimes go awry, this is the price we pay for progress ... and the sender probably stuffed something too big in an undersized envelope, anyway.

Receiving the package so late without any explanation made it feel whimsical. Or unreliable. Maybe a bit of both.

1 comment:

Amy said...

My favorites are the colorblindness test and the eye chart. I'm also a fan of the maps and the connect the dots. Oh, and the cartoon starring the NYC cab driver. (Okay, I have a lot of favorites!)

I showed it to everyone at Pub Quiz last night (even Tricep Tattoo Boy stopped by to take a gander; too bad he didn't send Eric by ...) and then to Susan today. The most common reaction: I can't believe most of those got delivered!